Over 16K people waiting to adopt a child for past 3 years

New Delhi: More than 16,000 prospective parents have been waiting for over three years to adopt a child, with officials attributing the slowdown to availability of fewer children who are legally free for adoption.

As per data shared by officials of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) in response to an RTI filed by PTI, there are 28,501 prospective parents whose home study reports have been approved and are in queue for adopting a child. Out of them, 16,155 prospective parents whose home study reports have been approved three years ago are still waiting in queue for adoption, according to the data. As of June 28, there are 3,596 children legally free for adoption, including 1,380 with special needs.

“The average waiting period for adoption is 2-2.5 years and then there are very few children who are legally free for adoption, making it further difficult for prospective parents to find children for adoption,” an official said. According to official data, there are 2,971 children living in specialised adoption agencies who fall under the category of being not adoptable while there are a total of nearly 7,000 children in the specialised adoption centre.